Friday, January 16, 2015

Ford Mondeo Hatchback

Now the European Mondeo and US Fusion are pretty much the same cars.
Which is great. The new Fusion is really one of the best driving car in its class.
And it looks great.

But.... I would love to see the hatchback version over here.
Even though I know it won't happen. Since "Americans don't buy hatchbacks".
Of course they don't. No one is buying the Focus, or even the Audi A7 or even the Tesla model S.

10 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I'm surprised that Ford hasn't brought it stateside. They are clearly committed to offering cars that are more seductive than the typical midsized competitors. They've made fistfulls of money off the Fusion, you'd think they'd be comfortable taking this risk and offering the wagon and hatch. Since no one else is, they'd be at a real advantage.

Vince, the glass roof of the new Mondeo hatchback completely sucks for several reasons :- it's just a fixed roof without slide/tilt unlike the wagon- despite being fixed, the transparent surface is quite small compared to what could have been done- it's mounted too far back so that small and medium sized drivers can't enjoy it.

Matter of fact, Ford completely messed it up. Too bad, as I'm driving a old gen Mondeo hatchback with a sunroof, I will not buy the new one.

I always thought Mazda had an advantage for offering the 5-door and wagon versions of the 626 and 6 here.. but they barely offer them anywhere anymore. I'd love to see the 5-door Fusion hit US shores, but it's not all that distinctive versus the sedan.

Vince, the issue isn't anything anti-hatchback per se, so much as the inconveniences presented by having a hatch on a sedan with a sloping roof. Lincoln designers were asked the same question about this by Japlonik and they said that living with a hatch daily would be inconvenient, because you'd always have to watch out for the heads of taller rear-passengers every time you closed the hatch. It's perfectly acceptable on a 80,000 Audi A7 because most A7 buyers buy the A7 for themselves and a front-seat passenger at most. But Ford's and Lincolns are to be used daily, more often ferrying around rear-seat passengers then A7 drivers do.

"Lincoln designers were asked the same question about this by Japlonik and they said that living with a hatch daily would be inconvenient, because you'd always have to watch out for the heads of taller rear-passengers every time you closed the hatch. It's perfectly acceptable on a 80,000 Audi A7 because most A7 buyers buy the A7 for themselves and a front-seat passenger at most. But Ford's and Lincolns are to be used daily, more often ferrying around rear-seat passengers then A7 drivers do." This is a joke right? If it isn't then it's the most lame excuse I've ever heard for not offering a hatchback!